Aah - Poor Little Squirrel

From what I have seen from the gray squirrels we have here, the adults are not particularly doting on their children once they become big enough to move about and eat on their own. I don't see them every year, but every couple of years, some very small squirrels will find their way to the squirrel/bird food bowl that I have on my second-floor fire escape. I assume they find it by following the adults, or maybe their mom shows them. But the adults chase them away each time.

Of course, the squirrels chase one another away all the time too, as they seem to have a problem with more than one of them picking nuts or eating at the same time. The young ones don't immediately learn that one-squirrel-at-a-time rule because they often come up as a group, only to be chased away by one of the adults. I assume that one of these adults must be the mother of these little ones, but I have never seen mom make way for her babies to eat. Maybe that's her way of teaching them proper squirrel behavior.

It seems that the young squirrels have to wait until late in the afternoon, at dusk, when the adults have finished gorging themselves, because that's when I see them. Again, they usually come as a group. When they are young, gray squirrels are mostly reddish-brown in color, and hard to tell apart from red squirrels, which we also have here. They grow quickly though, and it's difficult to tell them apart from the adults by the end of the summer, as their fur also changes color.

I am not an expert on Eastern Gray Squirrels, but I think the young ones leave to find new areas by the end of the summer. Otherwise, I'd have way more squirrels at my bowl than I do. They are supposed to have two litters a year, of from one to four babies, sometimes more. They give birth in February and March, and in June and July, according to Wikipedia, but I think the only ones I ever see are the ones who are born in the winter. I assume that mom feeds them through the winter because the small ones don't come around until spring.

This is actually somewhat on topic because I have never seen a baby squirrel following its mom around. Siblings seem to move around in a group, maybe following mom by sight, in order to learn where to find stuff, but it never seems that mom is leading them anywhere intentionally. Then again, different types of squirrels have different behaviors.

I have known several people who have made friends with them, at least to the point of them taking food from their hands. An older lady I met up north had one that would come into her house to beg for food. For that matter, when I was going up north more regularly, I'd bring food for the squirrels around our camp, and they'd follow me around in the trees. When I was putting a ceramic floor in the camp, I hadn't brought anything, and a squirrel came in and scolded me. Here, if I don't have any food in the bowl, one of the squirrels will sometimes bang on the window, although I'm never sure whether it's telling me to put food in the bowl or teasing the cat, as Ella takes it as a personal affront.

Anyhow, I would have a hard time not trying to accommodate that young squirrel if it were following me around like that.

 

I wouldn't make fun. I have two, maybe three, books on squirrels.